Stewardship

This month at St. Mark, like at many Lutheran churches throughout the US, is stewardship month. We're nearing the end of the church and calendar year, and it's time to make pledges, create a budget, and pray that everything works out next year.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, stewardship is the "churchy" word for faithful responsibility with resources, be they time, money, talents, etc. Yet when we talk about stewardship month in the church, we're usually only talking about the money part of it. At St. Mark, we had a speaker last week and the week before who talked about their own (money) stewardship journeys, and encouraged others to be faithful stewards of that which God has given them. Yesterday, we collected pledge cards, which is where each person or family spends some time deciding how much money they plan on giving the church over the course of the next year, then breaks that down to weekly or monthly offerings. This, along with history and some other things, forms the basis of the church's budget for the following year.

As you can see, stewardship is a big deal, but it is also a big leap of faith. Those who are honest, faithful, and prayerful about their stewardship for the following year are taking a big leap. The church council is trusting the people of the congregation to meet their pledges so that the budget comes out balanced--or at least not too far in the red.

But I want to talk more about the meaning of stewardship in the church. It really bothers me that stewardship means so many things to us, yet we only really talk about money. This isn't just a problem at St. Mark. It's a general problem with the church. We emphasize that being faithful stewards includes being eco-friendly, sharing our time and talents, and living our entire life as faithful people, not just Sunday mornings. Why don't we talk about this? What would the church look like if we were faithful stewards of our lives, not just of our money? And would being faithful stewards of our lives make us more faithful stewards of our money?